I was a tycoon in World War I: Starting to save France

Chapter 7 Tractor becomes tank
Charles strolled through the tractor factory.

The Francis Tractor Factory is considered a large-scale enterprise in France. According to statistics, there are only 257 companies in France with more than registered employees, and most of them are small-scale enterprises with to employees.

The Francis Tractor Factory, however, had more than 60 employees, thanks to the fact that two years ago Francis invested heavily in introducing the "Holt 1911" tractor from the UK. This was the world's first crawler tractor with an internal combustion engine, which was only successfully developed in .

After introducing this tractor, Francis defeated all his competitors in one fell swoop, occupying 70% of the market share and becoming the leader of agricultural tractors in France. This is how his factory reached such a scale.

As a result, everyone in the town of Darwaz has a job, and many people come from other places to earn money, and some even come from Paris to work, which also pushes up prices and rents in the town of Darwaz.

The assembly workshop is very large, with more than a dozen tractors that have not yet been completed parked in the middle. Workers are busy going up and down, and the sound of metal striking against each other and the sound of chains moving parts are endless. It looks like a bustling scene.

However, Charles could see that the workers were more or less distracted and were working much slower than usual.

This was not because there were recently unsold tractors piling up in the warehouse, but because the Germans would be here soon and the workers were not sure whether everything they were doing was still meaningful.

Just as Ciel was thinking about how to start next, a familiar voice called his name.

Turning his head, he saw Matthew half exposed from behind the tractor. He was wearing oily work clothes, waving a wrench at Charles with a bright smile on his face.

Ciel smiled in response and stepped forward quickly.

Matthew is Joseph's son, two years older than Charles, and has been in the same class with Charles until junior high school.

Perhaps because of Joseph's relationship with the Bernard family, Matthew has taken good care of Charles since he was a child.

For more than ten years, Charles has been bullied by others.

Most of Charles' classmates are farmers and workers exploited by capitalists. Some of them cannot get the expected compensation due to labor disputes or work injuries, and some cannot pay the bank's loan interest of 5% to 10%... The latter is simply a crime of the two hundred family bank capital and has nothing to do with the Bernard family.

They have no place to seek redress for their grievances and their lives are becoming unbearable, so their children will vent their anger on Charles, the "capitalist"!
Because of this, Charles got many nicknames, such as "illegitimate child", "vampire", "hypocrite", etc.

At this time, Matthew would always stand in front of Charles, waving his fist and shouting at those people:
"You wanna try my fist? Come on, you bastards!"

Matthew would not reason with those people, he always solved problems with his fists.

This seemed to have a very good effect. Ciel has successfully survived to this day. Even in the high school without Matthew, not many people dared to bully Ciel.

Matthew put down the wrench and gave Ciel a warm hug, completely ignoring the oil stains on his work clothes.

"I heard that you are going to be in charge of the tractor factory?" Matthew's eyes were full of sincerity: "I am so happy for you. It seems that Francis finally recognizes you!"

Ciel smiled self-deprecatingly: "This is only temporary, I don't care about this!"

"I'm thinking about a question!" Matthew looked around half-jokingly: "If you are in charge here, will I become your employee? What should I call you then?"

Charles uttered a serious "hmm", raised his head, put his hands behind his back, and acted arrogantly:

"Master Charles? Or sir? Or master..."

"Go to hell!" Matthew laughed, put his hand on Charles' shoulder and pushed him aside.

After a while, Matthew said calmly, "But you may not have a chance!"

"Why?" Charles asked in confusion.

Matthew shrugged. "Have you forgotten that I'm already nineteen?"

"Have you received a conscription order?" Charles asked with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Matthew nodded: "They need more manpower. If nothing goes wrong, I will go to Paris for training the day after tomorrow!"

The legal conscription age in France was 20, but no one cared about this law during the war, just as the factories were full of underage child laborers. Charles was silent, and he couldn't help but wonder in his mind: Is Matthew three quarters or one quarter? If it is three quarters, is it a broken hand or a broken foot, or both?
Matthew seemed to see Charles' worry. He raised his head and said with a smile:

"Don't worry, Ciel! Once I'm done with my training, this war should be over. I'll be fine!"

As mentioned before, everyone thought that this war would end soon, either win or lose, in a month or two at most.

But Charles knew that was not the case!
"Master Charles!" Joseph appeared in front of the two of them. He glared at Matthew, as if warning him not to be so casual in front of Master Charles.

Matthew rolled his eyes in response to his father's overreaction. He waved at Charles, turned to face the half-assembled tractor, and shouted exaggeratedly:
"Come on, ladies, who else needs to get dressed?"

Joseph ignored Matthew, took Charles out of the workshop and said:

"I'm sorry, Master Charles! Matthew is always so disrespectful!"

"Master Charles, maybe you should visit the engine production line, which is the core of the factory..."

"No, Joseph!" Charles interrupted him. "I need twelve tractors in good condition!"

"Tractor?" Joseph looked at Charles in confusion.

"We need some more steel plates!" Charles asked Joseph, "Do we have any?"

"Of course!" Joseph replied, "This is a tractor factory, and many parts are pressed from steel plates!"

"How thick is it?" asked Charles.

Joseph answered in a clear manner: "There are 2mm, 3mm, 5mm and 9mm!"

9mm steel plates are used to make tracks.

"Let's just say 9 millimeters!" Charles said, "and prepare a workshop, welding tools, skilled workers, and give me some paper and pens. Can you do it?"

"Of course!" Joseph responded, "I'm happy to help you!"

Joseph was confused. Was Master Charles trying to improve the tractor? Or was he just treating the tractor as a toy?

Joseph wants to remind Master Charles that this period of time is very important. Master Francis will decide whether to hand over the factory to you based on your performance! So of course you can't do this!
However, these words were not spoken, and Joseph saw determination in Master Charles' eyes.

Maybe he knows what to do, Joseph thought.

While Joseph was getting ready, Charles sat in Joseph's office and drew.

With a ready-made tractor chassis, converting it into a tank is not a difficult task.

It can't even be considered a tank, but more like an armored vehicle, which is nothing more than adding steel plates around a tractor and leaving a few machine gun holes... Artillery is not necessary for the time being, as it is heavy and will become complicated, and machine guns are enough.

The only problem is that the 9mm steel plate is too thin. The German Mauser rifle can penetrate the steel plate of this thickness at about 100 meters.

Charles thought about overlapping and welding two layers of steel plates to the chassis, but he estimated that the power of the "Holt 60" could not withstand such a heavy weight.

A simpler method is to design the front armor to be inclined, which not only increases the probability of "bouncing" but also increases the "equivalent thickness".

The machine gun used was the Hotchkiss machine gun, which had the disadvantage that the magazine feed limited the rotation angle of the machine gun.

There are three crew members in total, two machine gunners and a pilot. They should be able to bear this weight, right?
As long as it can be driven, there are no requirements for speed, maneuverability, etc.

After all, it is the first tank in human history and it was completed in one day. Don’t be too greedy. There will be plenty of time and space for improvement in the future!

(End of this chapter)